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Oral History Interview with Roberta Waggoner
October 4, 2013
Interviewer: Cyns Nelson
Interview Transcribed by Cyns Nelson
[Interview takes place at the Valdez-Perry Branch Library in Denver, Colorado.]
Note: This oral history consists of two audio files. Midway through the interview, the narrator asks to stop/pause the recording. Accordingly, the transcript reflects “First File” and “Second File,” and the time coding starts at 00:00 for each of the two parts.
First File
00:00 CN: Today is October 4, 2013. My name is Cyns Nelson, and I’m conducting oral histories with residents from the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods. This interview is part of the Denver Public Library’s “Creating Your Community” project, and the oral history will be archived with the Western History Department. Right now I’m talking with Roberta Waggoner, a longtime resident of the Swansea neighborhood.
So, let’s start by having you tell me your full name. And then tell me when and where you were born, and share something about your upbringing.
RW: My name is Roberta Alice Waggoner. My maiden name was Lee. I live at 4647 Josephine Street, in Swansea.
The neighborhood, after I got married-I’ve been married for 64 years-and we moved away, but then we came back. And we live in the house that I was born in, at 4647 Josephine.
CN: I want to get back to that. But tell me what year you were born?
RW: 1933. July 26, 1933.
CN: And the house that you live in now-
RW: Is the house-my mother gave me the house after she went to California, and she was in no shape to come back to Denver. I really appreciated it. We had lived in Commerce City, and we moved back to be with her, and then she went to California.
I had a happy childhood. Got in trouble once in a while with my Daddy. But that was fine. I learned, you know, from him. I went to Swansea School-the old Swansea School. Sometimes I stayed with my grandma and grandpa, who lived in the farmhouse over at 4770 Elizabeth-yeah, Elizabeth. I just really enjoyed that, because my grandma spoiled me. My grandpa was a quadruple amputee, and she took care of him.
Then, they also lived at 4616 Brighton Boulevard. I went down there to stay with them, too, and would walk back to Swansea School. But she had me spoiled when she was out there in the farmhouse, because she raised rabbits and chickens, to help make a living. I’d tell her: Grandma, you’ve got to cook me a rabbit or a chicken, or I’m going home. And she would do so.
We went roller skating and stuff, like at Mammoth Gardens, which is no longer. The neighborhood used to be really fantastic; was really good. Now, with the people that live in it, hmm-mm. I’m hoping that they would take our house, when the highway goes through, but they’re telling me No. Well, anyway, to get back with that, that’s-
CN: Well, tell me what you remember about the neighborhood. Think about the buildings that were here, and the people. Describe it for me, what you remember when you were young.
RW: Oh, I can remember having an outhouse on the alley. And it was a pull-chain thing. I also remember when they put the sewer in on 47th Avenue. The house was just a four-room house. And then my mother and dad built on the kitchen in 1939, and also the bathroom. I remember them things. I’m trying to think, way back-because I did go way back (laughs)-but, we used to have fun in that little house. I remember my mom had an old Roper stove, and it was blue. They had linoleum on that floor, and she would wax it, and my sister and I would skate on it. And, we had a lot of fun.
05:15 But then, as things go by, you grow up. I quit school. I only went to Manual for a little while. Then, my husband and I decided we wanted to get married. He was in the Marine Reserves, out at Buckley. And he was all ready to go out there to catch the bus, and when he was standing in the bathroom, looking out the window to see when the bus was coming, so he could run out and catch it. And that’s where he proposed to me! (Interviewer laughs.) So that’s been many a year.
CN: Your husband proposed to you in the bathroom?
RW: He proposed to me in the bathroom while he was looking out the window. A lot of people don’t know that, but they’ll know it now. But, let’s see. What else, when I was young.
CN: What kinds of activities went on in the neighborhood?
RW: At that time? They had shows at Swansea School. And, I think it cost a nickel to go to the show. We’d got to the show, you know. There was activities, they did things. But now they don’t. They’ve got that nice recreation center over there, and they only have bingo, and it’s very small. That’s for the adults. The rest of it is for kids. They used to have ceramics and stuff like that. And then they quit. But anyway, I just-well, what else do you have-
CN: Tell me about some people from the neighborhood, from back when you were young.
RW: Okay. Mr. and Mrs. Doubleday lived next door to us. And he would come over, and he’d give me a dime, or a nickel, to watch my mom put curlers in my hair. She’d use rags, and then they would curl, and they would be long curls, like Shirley Temple. Gee, I forgot about that!
We had some real nice neighbors. And then we had a man and his wife that lived two houses down. He grew garlic. We’d go get garlic and eat garlic. Can you imagine that? We had a good, I had a good life. My dad and my mom says: Boy, your dad wasn’t making very much money in them days, $18 dollars a week. But still, when I got to be about 12, they bought me my roller skates, and that’s when we started skating at Mammoth. Then, we also went to Derby, that is now Commerce City-most of it is Commerce City. We went there, skating.
CN: Was that a skate park? Or the name of the neighborhood?
RW: That was the name of the neighborhood, was Derby. Mm-hmm. Commerce City tried to change it, but they didn’t get all of it changes. Part of it is still Derby. You know, after Harold and I got married-my mom was an epileptic, so she didn’t go very many places. She did drive. But, when I was three years old, she had brain surgery, and it left her paralyzed. She worked herself out of that, being paralyzed, by crocheting curtains for every window-in the front room, and the bedrooms, and the dining room. She crocheted curtains.
CN: Did you just say she worked herself out of-
RW: She worked herself out of being paralyzed. But she-I lost her in ’92. And, I really miss her. I only had my sister, and I lost her also. I’ve got my-well, my niece is gone too. So I just have her boys, and my husband’s family.
10:01 Anyway. I’m trying to think. I should have wrote some of these things down, but I didn’t have time. There is-I did have a good life. My grandpa, he lived across the alley, and my grandma. I’d go over there-she’d call, and she’d say: “Tell Bert to come over, I’m having scrambled eggs and brains.” And I’d go over and eat supper with them; and we played cards with them. And then after grandma passed away, well, he’d come over and would eat dinner with my folks. He was as Spanish-American War veteran, and he was one of the ones that founded the VFW-I think it’s John S. Stuart Post Number One, which I have a lot of his records, that I will be donating to the VFW. I’ve always been proud of him.
My dad retired from Cudahy.
CN: What is Cudahy?
RW: Packing company. And, my husband, he retired from Fruehauf Trailer, which went bankrupt. But he retired long before that. I retired from the Colorado Serum Company, I worked there for 40 years.
CN: Colorado-
RW: Serum, on York Street. Right next to Eaton Metal. But I used to walk across them tracks, several times a week, to go swimming, at the little pool that was down at the park. Believe it or not, I went down there and my sister went down there. And she, “Well, where is Roberta?” And she said, “Well, she’s home with chickenpox.” And that lady says: “You go home and don’t come back until she’s over them.”
We used to have fun. Some of the girls and I, we would put our initials on our backs, with tape, and get sun tanned-and then take the tape off. Well, as you can hear: My initials spell raw, R-A-W. That always-after I started bowling, they’d always ask me if I cooked my bowling ball. (Laughing.)
Of course, when I got married I wasn’t quite 16. My mother lied about my age. And Harold’s mother-she said, “If she knew how young I was, she wouldn’t have signed his papers.” Because, he wasn’t 21, either. He was turning 20. But, we’ve our ups and downs. But we’ve had a good marriage.
CN: How old did your mom say your were?
RW: She said 16. I called, and I found out the marriage license-the preacher from Pilgrim Church-at that time, Pilgrim Congregational-Reverend Thomas, he’s the one that came to the house and married my husband and I, under the archway. When we had the house remodeled, we wouldn’t let them take that archway out. We said, “You leave that archway there.” It means something to me, you know.
We did, we had a good time, growing up. They had a vacant lot next door to us. And we’d get out there and fly kites. One time, my dad got off of work, and he looked up in the air, and there was a kite. It was MY kite. He got home-we just kept adding balls of string to that thing. And when he got home, he wound it in, and it took him about an hour-and-a-half to get that wound back in. “Don’t ever do that again to me,” you know.
We played softball out there, and everything. My mom raised chickens at that time, too.
I don’t know what else to say, really.
CN: So, your whole-your family and you, you’ve really spent your whole life in this neighborhood, the Swansea neighborhood.
RW: Yes, uh-huh.
15:01 Now, it used to be I could name every person that lived on that street, you know, on the two blocks. But I can’t now. I don’t have too much to do with some of them. I figure: Let them live; I live my life, and let it go at that. But we did have good neighbors, good neighbors. I guess we still have some good ones, but I don’t know who they are.
CN: Well, tell me about the neighborhood now-what you see, the buildings and activities now. Describe it for me.
RW: The activities? I don’t think there’s much activity going on. Because, you hear them at night, when they’re having parties. But we don’t do that.
CN: How about, what people would see if they were coming to your neighborhood. Describe what people would be seeing.
RW: What they would see? They would see houses that are probably 100 years old. Because ours IS over 100 years old. They would see-after I wrote that for Judy Montero, I said the place was up for sale, but now somebody has got that property. And they’re doing mechanical work in there. It was my husband and I that made a-like a petition-and had the neighbors sign it so Bacchy [?] Adus [?] could build a garage. And he built a REAL nice garage, and got real friendly. In fact, Sam Goldstein, too. He had it first, because of the flood in ’65 wiped him out, out where he was at. And he bought that land. I just don’t know what else to-
CN: What about buildings? What buildings are in your neighborhood, outside of homes?
RW: They had a Safeway store, up there. I think it was ruined by the kids going in there. It wasn’t very clean. They finally tore it down. I mean, they sold it. What they got now up there, is a-hmm-roofing company, with a tile roof. If I had been their neighbor, I think I would have complained. But, I don’t live up there, and I don’t go up there.
After I-70 went in, my folks lived there.
CN: What do you remember from the first construction of I-70?
RW: Well, see, we wasn’t living there. We was living in Commerce City. But we knew what was going on, because we was pretty close to my mom and dad. And, of course, I was working at Serum Company, and my mom was taking care of the kids. Let’s see, was it in ’63? Let’s see. Can’t remember when it opened. I know she was taking care of our daughter. Our son might have already been in school. But, my mom taught her how to sew. She made her own wedding dress. She made her brides maids, and all that.
CN: Your daughter made-
RW: Yeah, she-well grandma helped her, you know. My grandmother lived out in the apartment; there’s a little apartment in the back, next to the garage. My grandma lived out there. She was my sweetheart. We just, you know, went on with life.
My husband got involved in Boy Scouts, and stuff like that. We got involved in bowling. I don’t know what else to tell you, about the neighborhood.
CN: That’s fine.
19:41 So, what do you think are the central issues for this neighborhood-for your neighborhood.
RW: The highway. At first, they was going to build that highway up.
CN: And what highway are we talking about?
RW: I-70. Replace the overpass and put Swansea school over at the rec center, which would have been real nice. But, that went to pot. I mean, somebody complained about that. So now they’re going to put it down. They say they’re going to go down underneath. Well, I can just see-and they’re going to cap part of it-I can just see kids throwing balls, or something, over the fence, down onto the highway and then trying to go get them. I can see the fire department trying to get up in the neighborhood when they have to go down underneath there, and there’s no outlet-only at Brighton Boulevard and York, I think it is. No, Steele Street.
I’ve been going to their meetings, but it don’t mean-but anyway, that’s the only think I can-
CN: So, how do you feel about what the plans are for I-70.
RW: I feel they need to tear the old one down, put another one up. Because they do make real nice overpasses, now. And the way it is, we-there was a couple of us that complained about the weeds, and the gal told me: I don’t know whether CDOT is responsible, or the Denver city is responsible. But I notice the weeds got cut. But you could not see the ramp. If you was going up to the ramp on York, and you’re coming _____ place, you couldn’t see. So anyway, they got that cut down.
I know there’s been people that have lost their homes, and stuff. There’s somebody that’s coming along and buying them up real cheap, and fixing them up.
CN: What is going to happen with your home?
RW: Well, they tell me they won’t be taking it. But it would be real close. But I wish they’d take it. There’s three of us that are on oxygen: My husband’s on oxygen; my son’s on oxygen at night. And I’m on it all the time, too. So, I just hope that they prepare something for the people that are going to be with the oxygen-healthwise, and everything.
They bring up so much about cancer, in that neighborhood. Well, my daughter had breast cancer. She didn’t live in that neighborhood-only when she went to mom’s, for the babysitter. She didn’t live there. I didn’t live there for 20-some years, and I still had it. So, I think it depends on your body. I don’t think they can say it’s from the highway.
CN: Well, so why do you want them to take your home?
RW: I just don’t-I would rather have them, if they’re going to be real close to me, give me my money and let me go.
CN: You’re worried about car fumes-is that the relationship between the oxygen and the highway?
RW: I do. Because the fumes from the cars-that highway is down, it’s going to be down. Where’s the fumes going to go? They’re going to go UP. And they’re going to be level with the ground. They’re not going to be up in the air. That’s my concern. And I let it be known, too.
CN: How do they determine what homes are going to be taken for the construction?
RW: They’re-they want to put up more lanes. And they’re going to take more properties. I think that it’s going to be 50-some properties. They’re even going to take a business out, a truck stop out. That pilot? That will be gone. And, I think it’s a shame. There’s people that work there.
25:13 I’m concerned about the highway.
CN: When is it going to happen?
RW: Well, they say they’re going to start it in 2016. So, that’s two years from now-a little over two years. I say, maybe I won’t even be around! (Laughs.) My husband’s 84 and I’m 80. How much longer have we got?
CN: A long time, I hope. (Narrator laughs.)
RW: Well, I’ll surprise you.
Do you knock any of this off?
CN: Only if you want to.
RW: Well, knock it off for a minute.
26:02 [Recording is stopped.]
Second File
[Recording picks up with Roberta talking.]
00:00 RW: We used to go to bingo all the time, over there. There’d be as high as maybe 20 people over there. But some of them have died off, and some of them have moved, or some got sick. So there’s only, maybe, seven that go all the time. And then there’s a bunch of them that come up from Laradon Hall, and plays bingo. We all get a bang out of them. And when they “bingo,” they sure let you know.
CN: Where is Laradon Hall?
RW: It’s on Lincoln Street, down by Stapleton Park, down in Globeville.
CN: What other activities do you do now?
RW: Don’t do many. Just go to their meetings, and stuff like that. I should get, maybe, a little more involved with the stockyards. It’s kind of hard, when Harold can’t see. It’s a little hard. He can see a little bit, but not a whole lot.
CN: Do you visit the Western Hist-or, the National Western?
RW: Nah. We’ve been down there a couple of times, and that’s about it. We went down there one year. The dust and everything kind of gets to you, with the horses and all that.
That’s another thing: When I was a kid, my mom gave me a Toni permanent. Do you know about them? Well, they was a home permanent. She gave me a perm, and we went down on kids’ day-she gave me that perm the day before. We went down on kids’ day and we stood by the railing. So, you know when those horses went by-you know what happened to my hair? It got loaded with the dirt and everything else. But that was the best permanent I ever had, at that time. (Laughing.) So, I said it was well fertilized. (Laughing.)
Lot of memories, I’ve got a lot of memories, back. Like I said: playing ball in the vacant lot.
CN: What about church? Did your family attend church?
RW: We was going to Pilgrim Church. And they got steps there that, I’m kind of leery of. I’m not too steady on my feet, and sometimes I’m not willing to try and go up a bunch of steps. It’s kind of hard. It’s a good little church.
It’s the only church in Elyria. They got more churches in Globeville than they have in Elyria.
CN: So, tell me what you think the future is for this, for your neighborhood. What do you see, 20 years from now.
RW: Practically, with-there’s still going to be a lot of people there. I should put in there, too: In 1946, is when they started building all the houses up there, from the east part of Columbine on up. But, that old farmhouse is still there. They built the Catholic Church. But that was all gardening until 1946, and then they started building.
And then, of course, the little Baptist church up there, it burnt up, on 46th Avenue. They had-there is a nice neighborhood up there. But it seems like, where the older houses are in that, I guess people just-I think they’re mostly rentals. I don’t think they own them, a lot of them.
05: 04 CN: So, for the future, what do you see?
RW: For the future. I don’t see much of a future, any different than what it is now. Except for that highway. That’s going to cut-we always say “North Swansea,” and then the other part of Swansea. That highway, the way it is, is going to cut them both off. Right now, I can stand on my front porch-if I ride someplace with Bettie Cram? I can see her when she starts coming up Josephine Street.
But I don’t know what all they’re going to do. You know, they’re going to do what they want to do, anyway.
I was trying to think of what future there is, you know. The only future is just live, and enjoy life. Do what you can-TRY to do what you can, stuff like that. But I don’t see the future. I’d like to see it stay like it is, with an overpass instead of an underpass.
CN: Well, that comes about to the end of the questions I wanted to ask. But, what else would you like to say that we haven’t talked about?
RW: What else would I like to say. What else IS there to say? Well. When I was a kid, too, just down the street was the old library. And that there, I spend many an hour in that library. And, many an hour at the swimming pool down there. My dad and mom, they was down there with a friend of theirs, and they was swinging in the swings. I think the woman’s name was Mrs. Green, I’m not sure. But she said: “Robert, you know you can’t swing with the girls.” My dad says, “I think I can swing with my wife if I want to.” And, he did.
He always told us: “Boy, I wish I lived on Columbine Street.” Well, dad, why would you want to live on Columbine? “So I sleep between Elizabeth and Josephine. (Laughter.)
So, we had a lot of fun with him. We really did. Now I visit most of my relatives at Riverside Cemetery. That’s where the older ones are. And it’s a shame that Fairmount’s let it go like it’s went. But with all the rain, even the weeds are greening up! (Laughs.)
CN: That’s for sure.
RW: I’m trying to think of maybe some other little things. Oh! Cliff Dougal used to run Riverside. Well, we got to be real good friends with him and his wife. We got to go to their 25th wedding anniversary. They let doves fly, you know. Cliff, he came to one of the meetings we had down here in Elyria. They was arguing about something, I can’t remember what it was. But anyway, I said: “Well, you know something? He’s from Riverside Cemetery.” This guy spoke up, and he says, “Why are you here from Riverside?” I said, “Well, you know, he’s not going to let you be buried there.” And he looked at me, and he says, “How come?” I said, “Because you’re not dead yet.” That cooked him! (Laughs.)
10:27 He was a nice guy, really a nice guy. Anyway, I still go down there a lot. Just drive around, see how things look-see what’s going on. It made a difference.
I can’t think of anything else. I probably will after I get home.
CN: Well-
RW: Swansea school-there was a teacher, and her name was Ms. Weeks.
CN: Weeks?
RW: Weeks. I had her. My sister had her. My mother had her. And by the time I got her, she was an old, old lady.
CN: How do you spell Weeks?
RW: W-E-E-K-S. She shook one boy so hard one time, she lost her toupee. We laughed so hard, we had to stay after school.
But I think about the times, good old times. Because, my husband and I bowled a lot. In fact, one of our neighbors, who we got well acquainted with, bless their hearts, they’re both gone now. She thought, well, they never are home; they’re always gone.
CN: You just were active.
RW: Three days a week, three nights a week we went bowling.
CN: Where did you go bowling?
RW: Triple A, out in Aurora. Yeah, it was-we had a lot of fun.
But then-them was the good old days; these aren’t the good old days, they’re the old days. (Laughs.) You’ve got a lot to look forward to, don’t you! (Laughs.)
CN: I hope so.
RW: Anyway.
CN: Well? Is that about all, then?
RW: Yeah. I don’t think that there’s-you know, for a future, I think that in due time, that area where we’re at is just going to be all Spanish. I really do. Because, you see the people from Elyria walking their kids up to Swansea school, and they’re mostly all Spanish people. And that’s the same way with-you go to a meeting, and they have interpreters. This IS America. We speak English. If we went to Mexico? Do you think they’d let us get by with speaking English all the time, down there? (Laughs.)
Ah, I know I’m being terrible. That’s fine. They know how I feel. I open up my mouth.
The house that my dad was born in-you’ll read that, in that paper-the house that my dad was born in, after they moved over on York Street, 4642 York, Betty Wonder’s grandparents lived in that house. Of course, when I-70 went through, they took that house. (Long pause.)
And then we had a paper that we were supposed to fill out-I filled it out and sent it in to CDOT, that, to cross the railroad tracks at 47th-they wanted to know if it was better to have it at 46th, 47th, or 48th. Judy Montero just had 47th fixed. That’s a one-way street now. You can’t make a left-hand turn in there. Leave it alone. But you can’t-just like I wrote in there-you have to teach people to read, and read the signs. We had a tow truck go down the street backwards, yesterday, because Josephine’s one-way north. York is one-way south. And I hope they leave it that way.
But if they-I marked 47th and I made a catty remark about it. And I just said it to you. But if they would go through 48th, they would take out part of Eaton Metal and part of the roofing company. And that roofing company has been there for years. In fact, I went to school with some of the-one of the guys that worked there.
But I wanted to show you that paper that showed you where my grandparents lived. I’ve even got a doctor bill, where my great-grandfather lived with them. It was his doctor bill, WAY back when. Because that was from my great-grandfather. And my cousin just sent me a picture of him, over the internet. He finds pictures and he’s always sending me pictures, you know.
No, it’s home to me. I’m not scared to go sit on the front porch at night. But I won’t walk around in that neighborhood. My girlfriends and I, we used to walk clear up to City Park. You think I’d do that now? Mm-mm. NO WAY.
Is there anything else you want to ask me? You’re bringing memories to me! (Laughs.)
CN: That’s the point. That’s the point. Well, we’ve covered pretty much everything that I wanted to hit on-just to get your memories and descriptions. So, I guess that’s about it? Anything else?
RW: No, I told you about the outhouse, and I told you about- (Laughs.)
CN: Yeah, I mean, what’s going to top the outhouse?
RW: That was weird! Because, I remember the tank being up there. And, you’d pull the chain and it would take the water down in.
And then, of course, my dad and mom had a garage. They had an old Nash car, when I was a baby. My mom said that my sister weighed a lot more than I did. She’s four years older than I am. She weighed 12 and three-quarter pounds when she was born, at HOME. (Laughs.) They went someplace, my mom and a friend of hers did. And my sis fell asleep. So mom carries her into the house, puts her on the bed. Mom walks back out to get me, and here’s my sister following her.
19:57 I can remember, you know, just small things that (pause) don’t mean nothing to a lot of people, but they mean a lot to me.
But we do have some good neighbors, sometimes. I don’t sit out on the porch anymore, like I used to. And then, we have oxygen delivered every Thursday, so we have to watch for that, you know.
I don’t know, I can’t think of anything else, except for: I worked for 40 years, and had a good time working for Joe Huff and his dad-well, his dad is who hired me. Of course, he’s gone now too. He told me that paper that-I didn’t know how to work that computer, I didn’t see the signs, you know? So I thought, well, when I got over there I’d just flip it down to the next line. Well, you can see how it printed out.
There’s a lot of things in there, about the highway-where they took the highway. You know, the houses. I even put names in there, of who built what. Harold Deeter [?] built the Colonial Manor, and it’s still there. And I think they’re going to take it for the highway, too. I really don’t know. Take part of it.
I really worked on that thing, and then-
CN: It will be in the library.
RW: Do you think that will be in the library?
CN: Mm-hmm. Well, I just want to thank you for taking time to sit down and be recorded. I really appreciate it.
RW: Well, thank you for letting me change the date to this. In fact, today would have been my mother’s hundred and-let’s see, this is 2013? She was born in 1910.
CN: On this day? Okay!
RW: Uh-huh. This was her birthday.
CN: Perfect.
RW: And the 30th of September was my grand-dad’s birthday, the one that was over in the Philippines. And, it was also my father-in-law’s birthday. But they would have been up in the hundred-and-thirties, you know.
I’ll tell you something about grandpa: When he came, you know, after-of course, this was after my dad was born and raised and then had me. We used to grab him and try and dance with him. “Quit that! That’s just hugging to music.” When I mentioned he’d come over and eat dinner with my folks and me? He always smoked M&O cigars. And he knew that my mother did not like the smell of cigars. So he’d lay them out on the windowsill, and then he’d go back after dinner. He’d go back out and take them.
He was always good to Harold and I. He just, he was precious to me.
CN: Okay. Well, that’s a perfect way to end. Thank you.
24: 15[End of recording. End of interview.]